“It is not difficult to write in Spanish; the Spanish language is a gift from the gods which we Spaniards take for granted. I take comfort therefore in the belief that you wished to pay tribute to a glorious language and not to the humble writer who uses it for everything it can express: the joy and the wisdom of Mankind, since literature is an art form of all and for all, although written without deference, heeding only the voiceless, anonymous murmur of a given place and time.” – Camilo Jose Cela(Spanish writer, 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1916-2002)

The best presentation I saw at SXSW Interactive this week had nothing to do with digital technology. It was a talk by Matthew Diffee, a cartoonist for The New Yorker and other outlets, titled “How to Be An Idea Factory.” After sharing a fascinating and hilarious view of his creative process with a standing-room-only crowd, Diffee graciously sat down with FORBES to demonstrate, up close, how a great cartoonist does what he does.

“Idea factory” is an apt moniker for Diffee and his fellow members of the The New Yorker’s cartoon platoon. Each of them is required to submit 10 panels a week for consideration, nine of which typically get rejected. That means coming up with a lot of jokes.

Diffee’s solution to this challenge is to park himself at a table for the first hour or two of each day — however long it takes him to drink an entire pot of coffee — and force himself to free-associate on a blank sheet of paper. That means writing, not drawing; Diffee says his cartoons always start with words, not images. Typically, he’ll take a phrase that’s lodged in his mind and tweak it this way and that until he comes up with something funny or hits a mental dead end. By the time he fills up the paper, he usually has at least a couple workable ideas.

As it celebrated its first birthday back in the USA, Fiat unveiled a funny new ad for the “bad-boy” sporty model of the 500 — the Abarth — and it fittingly features bad-boy actor Charlie Sheen.

“The Fiat 500 Abarth is the bad boy of the Fiat vehicle lineup and Charlie Sheen personifies the edgy and fun attributes of the Fiat 500 Abarth,” said Olivier Francois, global head of the Fiat brand and chief market for Chrysler Group.

“Though Trish and her bad boy types weren’t exactly Kindra’s style, she had to agree that Violet went for quiet and uninteresting. Sort of like mild salsa. Why even bother? You’d be better off just biting a tomato.” ― Erin McCarthy, Bad Boys Online